This summer in 1972, George McGovern, the so-called candidate of "Amnesty, abortion, and acid," tapped the young, senatorial shoulder of Thomas Eagleton to be his running mate. Over the course of the next eighteen days, a pair of anonymous phone calls alleging that Eaglteon had undergone treatment for depression and exhaustion would force McGovern to publicly withdraw his selection. In Joshua Glasser's debut, "The Eighteen-Day Running Mate," he recounts every angle of the episode in vivid detail. Wonks of all stripes will be interested by the various political wranglings that went on behind the scenes, but at the book's core are two very human stories about that rare breed of politician that still appears to be a good person even after all the facts are known, and their attempts to do what is right, both for themselves and for their country.

Mr Glasser, a researcher for Bloomberg Television, and I spoke about the incident, and how it continues to reverberate in the present day. Interview after the Jump.

Nicholas Mancusi

's reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Newsweek, Newsday, NPR, Time Out New York, American Arts Quarterly, Amherst Magazine, The Awl, and elsewhere. He has a regular column on The Daily Beast. Novel in progress.Daily BeastTwitternmancusi@gmail.com